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This chapter analyzes the representation and the theatrical practice of imagination in William Shakespeare's Macbeth (c. 1606). Imagination is explicitly a key topic of the play, both internally (in the psychology of Macbeth) and externally (with references to the contemporary, political context). And it is implicitly an essential part of the dramaturgy of spectatorship employed in the play. Kallenbach argues that the imagination of the spectator is intrinsically connected to the imagination of the title character; a relation which is also reflected in the physicalization of the play, that which is staged for the audience. The representation and practice of imagination in Macbeth thus involve an interweaving of many forms of imagination, from the physiological and epistemological to the aesthetic and political.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-76303-3_4

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